t is when he is
engaged in the work of forming the fundamental law under which he is
to live. That is his work and it cannot properly be taken out of his
hands."

The whole issue presented by this bill was but another of the countless
phases of that prolonged and fundamental contest between those who
believed that guarantees should be exacted from the rebel States, and
those who believed that these States should be freely admitted, without
condition and without restraint, to all the privileges which they had
recklessly thrown away in their mad effort to destroy the Government.
The strength of each side had again been well stated in the debates of
the Senate and House and in the veto-message of the President, and no
change of opinion was expected by either party from the reasoning or
the protest of the other. The President's argument was therefore met
by a prompt vote passing the bill over his veto, in the House by 114
_ayes_ to 25 _noes_, and in the Senate by 40 _ayes_ to 7 _noes_. The
resistance was very slight, and the fruit of the great Republican
victory of 1866 was now realized in the formidable strength which the
President's opponents exhibited in both branches.

The session lasted until the thirtieth day of March, and though
Congress had then completed all the business pressing upon its
attention the Republican leaders would not permit an adjournment _sine
die_. They decided to meet again in midsummer. The same necessity
that had induced them to convene in March persuaded them that the
President should not be allowed to have control of events for eight
months without the supervision of the legislative branch of the
Government. It was resolved therefore that Congress should meet on
Wednesday, July 3d. The vigilance and determination evinced by this
action did not prove useless or go unrewarded. Only a few weeks after
Congress had taken its recess the danger anticipated by the Republican
leaders, from hostile interpretation of the Reconstruction Acts by the
Attorney-General, was made fully apparent. On the 24th of May and the
12th of June Mr. Stanbery gave two opinions to the President, which in
many respects neutralized the force both of the original and
supplementary acts of Reconstruction. His adverse views were
elaborately and skilfully presented, and tended to embarrass the
military commanders of the Southern districts in the administration of
law, and to hinder the registration of voters and the h